Friday saw a 37% increase in box office
revenue over the previous Friday.
Three new films opened this weekend.
Two of them landed in the first two spots while the other opened
significantly lower.
Opening in first place with an estimated
$16.7M is the new CG-animated flick MONSTERS VS. ALIENS. The Paramount/Dreamworks
cartoon opened strongly, if not spectacularly (given the genre).
The film should end up with a fairly solid haul over the remainder
of the weekend.
Opening in second spot is yet another
horror film, this time THE HAUNTING IN CONNECTICUT which opened
with a decent estimated $9.58M on Friday. Another Lionsgate release,
look for this to follow the same tragectory as the other hundred
horror films that have opened already in 2009.
Slipping down in to third spot is
last Friday's number one film, KNOWING, which earned an estimated
$4.6M. Considering the competition from the top 2 films, KNOWING
did okay, losing only 48% of its audience which is decent in the
blockbuster era.
I LOVE YOU, MAN lands in fourth spot
on Friday, earning an estimated $3.97M. Fifth spot goes to DUPLICITY,
the Julia Roberts-Clive Owen starrer which managed an estimated
$2.3M. Both films, as with KNOWING, had to make room for the two
new openers, particularly MONSTERS VS ALIENS which took the heat
out of the box office for these three films.
The other new opener for Friday is
12 ROUNDS, which earned an estimated $1.75M. The action-adventure
flick directed by one-time action master Renny Harlin failed out
of the gate and will likely disappear out of the top 10 shortly.
The estimated returns for the other
remaining films for Friday are as follows: RACE TO WITCH MOUNTAIN
($1.5M), THE LAST HOUSE ON THE LEFT ($0.87M), TAKEN
($0.82M) and WATCHMEN
($0.75M).
The North American box office took
in an estimated total of $42.8 million for the whole of Friday 27th
March 2009.